Wednesday, 22 June 2011

The game of Dominoes can be traced back many centuries and is a traditional game that is still as popular as ever. There are many variations of the game although the most commonly one played is known as the ' Block Game'.

Most of us would be familiar with the Double Six game of dominoes but when you have four people or more playing it is possible to extend the pieces in the game by playing with a double nine, double twelve, double fifteen and up to double eighteen set to make the game more difficult as with the greater number of pieces and spots then the more combinations of play.

As I have said the 'Block Game' is the more popular and using the double six set of dominoes. In this game there would be one domino with a six spot at each end ( double six ). The remainder of the pieces have the spots arranged as like a single dice although there are some pieces with a blank at one end and also one piece with no spots at either end this being the double blank giving 28 pieces in a Double Six set.

With the Block game and two players the pieces are placed face down, shuffled and the each player would take 7 pieces and keep them facing away from his opponent. The remaining pieces would be left to one side for later. One player would begin by laying one piece down face up. The other played would then lay a piece next to it with a matching spot value and thus begin a line of play. Should the player not have a piece with a matching spot value to lay down he would have to take a piece from the pile remaining at the start and keep doing this until he could go.

The game ends when one player has used all of his pieces and his opponent is left to count the number of spots left on his remaining pieces and this would be his score. After an agreed number of games the player with the lowest score would be declared the winner.

It sounds complicated but once you have played the game it all becomes clear and for the younger competitors we also have a Farm Animal game of dominoes which has brightly painted farm animals at each end to match up rather than spots.